Commissioned and premiered by pianist Clara Yang. The music was inspired by a famous Chinese poem “Mooring by Maple Bridge at Night” by a Tang Dynasty poet Zhang Ji. Haunted by the poem’s profound melancholy, the composer attempts in his music to capture the subtle mood and vivid imagery depicted in the poem: the moon, the frosty night sky, the cawing crows, the river, the boat, and the center figure – a fisherman in solitude. The use of pentatonic-scale based modes derived from its quartal and quintal harmonies enrich its ancient Chinese music flavor, while its light flowing texture invests the music with a translucent quality reminiscent of ancient Chinese brush painting.
Published by People’s Music Publishing House in China
for Solo Piano (CD available on Amazon.com
RoboDream
“Ex Machina was [filmed/photographed] at Baryshnikov Arts Center, New York, NY. [Video/Photo] by [Colo Larinde/Austin Ruffer].”
CD Audio link:
Commissioned and premiered by pianist Clara Yang for a concert exploring connections between music and technology, RoboDream imagines a humanoid robot—human-like, yet unmistakably mechanical.
The piece opens with a four-note ascending motive that becomes the robot’s leitmotif throughout the work. A ragtime-inspired first section is lively, clumsy, and repetitive, evoking robotic movement. The middle section turns whimsical and dreamlike, tinged with sadness and a longing to become human, though continually interrupted by the recurring motive. A chaotic parody follows, suggesting malfunction and nightmare, before the music regains control.
The work concludes with a majestic climax as echoes of the robot motive gradually fade into the distance, a cartoonish passage then leads to a thundering cadence that abruptly ends the robot’s day and concludes the piece.
It has been included in the Ex Machina concert at Baryshnikov Arts in New York, part of Carnegie Hall’s United in Sound: America at 250,
RoboDream for piano X Machina Album CD Order
(Commissioned and performed by Clara Yang)
PHIL YOUNG 杨智华 | composer 
